Too Little Cash for Landmine Clearance
Too Little Cash for Landmine Clearance
Tajikistan is way behind schedule with its plan to clear the country of landmines by 2010. NBCentralAsia experts say funding for mine clearance has been pitiful. and it is still unclear where many of the mines laid along the Uzbek-Tajik border are.
On June 27, an army sapper died while clearing mines in the Rudaki district near Dushanbe.
Large numbers of landmines and unexploded munitions from the 1992-97 civil war are left in the ground across Tajikistan and along its borders with Uzbekistan and Afghanistan .
The unexploded munitions represent a threat to the public. Since the beginning of this year, six people including three children have died after stepping on landmines. This year, sappers have defused 603 antipersonnel mines and 77 unexploded shells over a 15,000 square metre area.
In 2000, Tajikistan acceded to the Ottawa Convention, which bans the use of antipersonnel mines and sets the target of eliminating all stockpiles by 2010.
Tajikistan is supposed to be completely free of mines by 2010, but Jonmahmad Rajabov, head of the Centre for Landmine Issues, says the clearance operation is well behind schedule due to a lack of funds.
“We have over 25 million square metres [where we believe there are mines],” he said. “But to date, only half a million square metres have been cleared, and our programme needs proper funding.”
A mine clearance operation funded mainly by international organisations has been running since 2003. Its principal aims are clearing minefields, destroying stockpiles, alerting the public to the dangers, helping victims, and promoting the anti-landmine message.
Since 2003, over 3,000 mines and 800 shells have been defused, but funding for the operation has dwindled. In 2006, the Centre for Mine Issues only received two million of the three million US dollars it was promised, and it has fared even worse this year with funding of just 1.5 million dollars instead of the expected 5.5 million.
Rajabov notes that the ongoing process of demarcating the border between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan is also slowing the clearance operation down. Around 10 per cent of the border has not been demarcated yet.
Uzbek border guards laid landmines along the border with Tajikistan in 1999 and 2000, but they have not yet handed over the maps marking their whereabouts.
“Since the line where the border runs has not been defined, we cannot work there. We have no precise information [on where the mines are]… This is a political issue, and we don’t know why the Uzbeks haven’t yet started clearing mines on their own territory,” said Rajabov.
Another landmine expert, Komyob Jalilov, explained that the landmines along the Tajik-Afghan border date from the time when Russian border guards patrolled the frontier, and planted the mines to deter insurgents crossing over from Afghanistan during the Tajik civil war.
Now that Tajikistan has acceded to all the relevant international conventions, no new mines are being laid along its borders and other security measures are being used instead, he adds.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
On June 27, an army sapper died while clearing mines in the Rudaki district near Dushanbe.
Large numbers of landmines and unexploded munitions from the 1992-97 civil war are left in the ground across Tajikistan and along its borders with Uzbekistan and Afghanistan .
The unexploded munitions represent a threat to the public. Since the beginning of this year, six people including three children have died after stepping on landmines. This year, sappers have defused 603 antipersonnel mines and 77 unexploded shells over a 15,000 square metre area.
In 2000, Tajikistan acceded to the Ottawa Convention, which bans the use of antipersonnel mines and sets the target of eliminating all stockpiles by 2010.
Tajikistan is supposed to be completely free of mines by 2010, but Jonmahmad Rajabov, head of the Centre for Landmine Issues, says the clearance operation is well behind schedule due to a lack of funds.
“We have over 25 million square metres [where we believe there are mines],” he said. “But to date, only half a million square metres have been cleared, and our programme needs proper funding.”
A mine clearance operation funded mainly by international organisations has been running since 2003. Its principal aims are clearing minefields, destroying stockpiles, alerting the public to the dangers, helping victims, and promoting the anti-landmine message.
Since 2003, over 3,000 mines and 800 shells have been defused, but funding for the operation has dwindled. In 2006, the Centre for Mine Issues only received two million of the three million US dollars it was promised, and it has fared even worse this year with funding of just 1.5 million dollars instead of the expected 5.5 million.
Rajabov notes that the ongoing process of demarcating the border between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan is also slowing the clearance operation down. Around 10 per cent of the border has not been demarcated yet.
Uzbek border guards laid landmines along the border with Tajikistan in 1999 and 2000, but they have not yet handed over the maps marking their whereabouts.
“Since the line where the border runs has not been defined, we cannot work there. We have no precise information [on where the mines are]… This is a political issue, and we don’t know why the Uzbeks haven’t yet started clearing mines on their own territory,” said Rajabov.
Another landmine expert, Komyob Jalilov, explained that the landmines along the Tajik-Afghan border date from the time when Russian border guards patrolled the frontier, and planted the mines to deter insurgents crossing over from Afghanistan during the Tajik civil war.
Now that Tajikistan has acceded to all the relevant international conventions, no new mines are being laid along its borders and other security measures are being used instead, he adds.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
